All posts tagged how democracy works

Many voters barely knew who these people were, let alone their stances on the issues.

Voter ignorance is old news to political scientists: Few adults can name the candidates they’re asked to choose among, let alone recite detailed stances on issues. (One much-quoted factoid is that only 40% of Americans can name the three branches of government; and a majority think the President has the power to suspend the Constitution.) But a new study offers at least some cause for optimism: It demonstrated that people can cast sensible votes even while recalling none of the specific positions taken by a candidate.

The study focused on four amnesiacs, ages 47 to 55, an extreme instance of voter “ignorance.” These people had coherent worldviews — two were Democrats, two Republicans — formed before their brains were damaged, but they had intense difficulty retaining new information. In technical terms, their “relational” or “declarative” memory was damaged.

First, the participants passed judgment on the trustworthiness and likeability of a series of random white-male “candidates,” whose head shots they were shown. Then they read aloud information about the stances of two of these candidates on nine important political issues. After 12 minutes of distraction (math problems), the participants voted.

In each case, one candidate was closer than the other to the participant’s political worldview. Remarkably, in 18 of 20 trials, the amnesiacs voted for the candidate whose views more closely mirrored theirs, even though “[n]ot one amnesic patient was able to recall even a single issue position that was correctly associated with any candidate.” The amnesiac voters justified their choices with vague statements like, “I don’t know. He just seems more likeable.” …

Biographies

Gary Rosen is the editor of Review and the former managing editor of Commentary magazine. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of "American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding" and the editor of "The Right War? The Conservative Debate on Iraq."